How some jerks succeed on the Auction House.

[procne]

I mean if you're a serious marketeer, undercutters ought to be your best friend. If they really are listing well below observed demand you buy and re-list; they're essentially just handing you cash.

Oh, that was funny too, when I was selling glyphs at lower price and someone kept buying them out. I think he gave up after buying 20 of the same kind and me still relisting them

[Seani]

Try playing Path of Exile

[Cheze]

Oh, that was funny too, when I was selling glyphs at lower price and someone kept buying them out. I think he gave up after buying 20 of the same kind and me still relisting them

the reality is that because only a relative handful of players are actually making pots/glyphs/etc and listing them, the price of goods (on most servers) is really variable. What this means is that by being the guy who lists exclusively at high price, you can make some scratch on arbitrage. And that's fine, but it's more reflective of the price of convenience than it is the price of the actual item.

on high pop servers like mine (proudmoore) the price of stuff like that collapses quite quickly toward the price of the herbs or whatever, because there are lots of people listing stuff all the time.

[mazuno]

the wow AH is in itself a somehow very interesting economic system. As well as in real life you'll have people exploiting it, and people complaining for nothing

[Deleted]

Everyone one of us proffited from AH in one way or the other. 48 h option is good because it is for low volume markets only option to sell something. If you have 1g auction cost on item worst 100g you simply need to jump to 150g to make profit because it will take a week or two to sell. etc..

AH is ok.

[Deleted]

Guy sells glyphs for 500g and complains he isn't selling any.

[Deleted]

So I am kinda lost. Who is the jerk now? The OP or the Joker?

[Paula Deen]

Sorry that some of us are nice, and don't want to rip people off. When I saw a glyph I needed selling for 500g, I just came back later until I found one selling at a reasonable price. I'm not going to give into the greedy fucks. I'm also not going to sell shit at ridiculous prices either.

Yeah bruv, its reasonable to have Glyphs selling for literal Silvers on Proudmoore the last week. That is reasonable

There is a limit to undercutting and considering half the population of the game can't even kill LFR without Determination, I think it speaks wonders to the economic knowledge of the average player. I am agreeing with Soul because I know the assholes that do this stuff. They don't do it to be an ebin Robin Hood. They don't do it because they refuse to pay 500g for Glyphs. They do it, in almost all cases, with the intent to crash the markets. On populated servers Market Crashes can permanently damage markets. Also you not paying 500g for a Glyph is a nonissue, especially when there are atleast 5 others for you not, that will.

[Phuongvi]

I don't sell glyph, I don't whine about the AH,I don't do massive undercut, I have 5 millions.
You're the problem

[Cannibalus]

It's very very simple: if you spend hours upon hours of your time playing an Mmo-Rpg like a browser game, you, sir, are retarded and should atleast go out and see places. Like i dunno Durotar or Moonglade or Dragonblight or w/e outdoor in-game zone you would like.

[muto]

Yeah bruv, its reasonable to have Glyphs selling for literal Silvers on Proudmoore the last week. That is reasonable

There is a limit to undercutting and considering half the population of the game can't even kill LFR without Determination, I think it speaks wonders to the economic knowledge of the average player. I am agreeing with Soul because I know the assholes that do this stuff. They don't do it to be an ebin Robin Hood. They don't do it because they refuse to pay 500g for Glyphs. They do it, in almost all cases, with the intent to crash the markets. On populated servers Market Crashes can permanently damage markets. Also you not paying 500g for a Glyph is a nonissue, especially when there are atleast 5 others for you not, that will.

Oh man, that'd be so unfortunate if those guys asking 500g had to steep down to 50g to compete.

[thilicen]

Bitching about people offering similar products at a cheaper cost in a free market is about as pathetic as it gets.

[kamuimac]

Thats very noble and also very stupid thing to do.
You need to understand a basic thing about undercutting: Noone will ever whisper you to thank you for selling cheap and whoever was going to buy your stuff would buy it regardless of its price if its something they need.

why would it be stupid - he set a price where he still profited and cut out all competition - its complete win win - if you ever will have you own company (which i seriously doubt with your attittude) you will learn that its much much better having a bit lower but very stable profits instead bigger but unstable profits.

- - - Updated - - -

There is a limit to undercutting .

yes there is - and that limit is +1 bronze to what mats did cost you to make it - as long as you can make 1 bronze you still profited from it extremly little but still you stuff sold when others didnt - its still win

- - - Updated - - -

Guy sells glyphs for 500g and complains he isn't selling any.

retards - retards everywhere our society is geting dumber and dumber with each generation lately sadly

[ItachiZaku]

I've been selling bags for 1200g per, but I tend to only post 2-4 at a time. I see them down to 800, i don't post. I see them at 1400, i set up 1200 buy out with a 900 min. During the course of my leveling or whatever, my banker gets rep medallions, other mats, boe's etc, so i'll usually be on that toon once a day or once every other day. It's a cycle and if i had extra glyphs, i'd post for 125g and be fine if the tycoon buys them out to repost for 500. It's out of my bags, won't come back to my mailbox to either sit for 30 days and vanish, or I won't have to worry about the process ever again.

[Marrilaife]

I was selling some vendor pet that costs 10g for 150g a pop, which is overpriced on its own, yet someone decided to buy me out to repost at 1000g the same thing. Feel free bro, I have an alt parked at the vendor and endless supply. He gave up in the end cuz I kept reposting.

If the item is purchasable from a vendor (like the story of a guy who sold shirts from old hillsbrad vendor) or craftable with easily available mats (like glyphs), you must be really playing on low pop to dream to keep monopoly on such item.

Oh, I also sold tons of left sharks to wannabe price resetters, and guess what, left sharks are back to 5g a pop from multitude of sellers. Futile endeavours are futile. I still wonder if any of them can humour and amuse me where exactly they stash thousands of sharks they keep for future reselling.

[Shihao]

I never thought of posting auctions like the "Joker" to sell stuff. Thanks for the hint, OP! =D

[greeeed]

True to be told, it's a lot easier just to sell at lowest price.
Specially if you farm everything yourself.

That what I used to do.
And should continue to do if not for Add-on showing average sale price.

[WowIsDead64]

Below is a transcript of my latest video.
TL;DR - Video link.
TL;DW:
Some players do massive undercuts on consumable items like glyphs, and make their money of getting their auctions bought out to initiate a price reset. I bitch about it (somewhat succinctly) for five minutes.

You may or may not know this by now, but I sell glyphs on the auction house.
I don’t sell nearly as many these days, but hopefully throughout Legion I’ll enjoy the same prosperity I have been in the previous five years I’ve been in this market.

The fast moving consumables market is a metagame that isn’t for everyone, but it draws some basic similarities to WoW’s main game and other MMOs. There’s what I’d call the pve market, where you’d have the usual customers that come around and make a few purchases, sometimes many purchases. Then there’s the non-combat pvp initiated between other sellers, and I’m not talking about simple undercutting to make your listing to be the most attractive sell, but deals and negotiations. And in the case I’m bringing up today, some of the outright nasty but albeit clever and perfectly legal tactics some players use to profit.

There’s only one rule in the Auction House, and that’s to make profit. And the first lesson to learn in order to conquer your market is to know that you can’t conquer your market, at least, not without burning it to the ground. In a healthy market, prices are controlled by supply and demand principles and not a single person, which allows many sellers to profit fairly, and buyers to not think that we sellers are a jackass oligarchy. I set my maximum price of glyphs at 500g, which is pretty much ridiculous but I’ve got to set it to something, so I’ll shoot for the moon. There have been a lot of bad vendors I’ve competed against and I’m not going to go into all the types I’ve encountered, but I’ll just focus on one today. I call this one the Joker, who mostly wants to watch the world burn.

As an example, I sell glyphs at 500g, but there’s the Joker with five separate auctions at very different prices, all with a 48 hour duration. It'll cost a few hundred gold for me to reset this auction.

The Joker’s intention, like all of us vendors, is to make some profit. But the Joker doesn’t have time to check and repost like the no-life Auction House whores he’d have to compete with. He goes around this. Here’s how it works.
He’ll create enough inventory to cast a net wide enough to cover the market, and with only 40 or so types of glyphs out at the moment, that’s not hard to do. Then he’ll post them all with these parameters set, then just kick back and relax.

One of two things will happen from here. One is simply, nothing. As you can see, most of the vendors could care less and will blindly undercut till their face turns blue or margins turn red. Joker ain’t making a dime off of this. The other possibility will come from who I’ll call an “enabler”, who is the actual target market of the Joker, and is in fact the center of his business plan altogether.
The enabler is a fellow vendor who’s very knowledgeable about the market and is aware of the fastest moving items, or glyphs in this case. Not one to settle for low profits, the enabler will buy out cheap auctions, including some of the Joker’s auctions, and repost them at a higher price, somewhere below the 500g I set. It’s smart move on the enabler’s part, but that’s what allows the Joker to sell anything at all.

So the enabler profits by being observant and proactive to maximize gains. The Joker profits by forcing frustrated vendors to buy out his auctions, and has the advantage of not having to actively post. In fact if the Joker posted too frequently, the enabler would probably be less likely to buy him out. No one really loses here, especially regular buyers who get to enjoy low prices. The thing is though, these prices aren’t what I’d call natural. If left alone, these prices can be higher. In fact other forces in the market will no doubt be affected, but I’ll limit my ranting to just the selling of glyphs.

So what do I, what does a Soulmachine do to profit? Play the long game. Jokers post slowly because they have to. In this case I’m trying to contact vendors that might be enabling the Joker’s behavior and if they stop, the Joker’s profits dry up. These types of players typically last few weeks, maybe a month or so, before they get tired of their minimal efforts yielding no result. Then they go away. Maybe for a while, maybe for good. Then prices slowly recover for the entire market, not just a select few items.

In an ideal and competitive market, I’ll post somewhat light; a single auction at a time with a 12 hour duration. I’m totally cool with letting the next vendor nab a sale. It makes them happy. Happy vendors make a happy market. When it’s clear that a single person is undercutting within moments of posting, vendors get frustrated and angry. Angry vendors become Jokers, or some other type of toxic vendor. I’ve learned that being cooperative and open to negotiation to other vendors pays off more than being the most frequent poster.

There’s one bit of feedback that I have for Blizzard about the Auction House, well maybe more like a question, but what if Blizzard got rid of the 48 hour option? Or just locked post durations to 24, even 12 hours? I only have experience backing up my opinion, but the 48 hour duration may be good for slow, low quantity markets like gear, mounts and pets. But faster, high quantity markets like glyphs, potions and enchants are vulnerable to ridiculous undercuts that are tantamount to, again my opinion, trolling, or damaging what I’ll call the “spirit of commerce.” Getting rid of 48 hour auctions won’t “solve” anything, but I think it’ll do a small part in mitigating this sort of behavior.

That suggestion is pretty controversial since very little about the Auction House has changed since launch, apart from how it’s accessed. But I’d like to hear some thoughts on if this old system needs to be looked at, or is even this too much? Laissez faire; the market will repair itself. Maybe.

Great theory, but useless. What all "AH Warriors" and "Uber-economists" seem to not understand - is that majority of players don't care about profit on AH. They have some items from doing their professions just for fun, they would vendor otherwise. So they would be happy to have any gold, that is > than vendoring price. And all they want - just to sell this items immediately. And best way to achieve this goal - to have lowest price, as lowest price = first line in list of items. So, what they, and I, usually do - set price to first suitable round number below lowest one. That's it. As simple, as that.

[MatadorMedia]

I do this. If some AH guru has posted prices way too high, then I'll severely undercut them and force them to buy me out (but still over the typical price). It's easy money; and whatever because the AH guru is still going to make a killing of what they buy from me just not as big a margin as their other stacks. However, if the AH guru prices something reasonably higher than typical price, then I'll just drop down a silver or something. I usually only sell one or two stacks at a time though.

[procne]

If you re being frequently bought out it means you re being farmed basically and used as a resource mule by someone who actually makes profit.

Or that guy is farmed by me off his golds and will end up with a lot of a specific product he cannot sell because I still keep relisting.

Overall I don't understand the mentality "I want to help the community and sell cheap". As I said in a previous post, noone will ever give a damn noone will notice you unless they re monitoring you specifically to farm you.

I think you're a bit too cynical. Not everyone does "good" stuff to be thanked for.

Not sure if you re after short 12h cap sales but its really pointless to aim so low. I don't even bother to re-undercut people when they chop off prices by 100-200g. I just buy them out and resell. I go back to doing whatever I want and they go back to re-crafting stuff to sell even cheaper. Does that make any sense?

Weird, I always saw it the other way around - I list stuff at cheap prices and can just go do something else and collect monies from the mailbox the next day. But if I start playing 1c undercutting game then I have to keep relisting stuff every 10 minutes simply because I'm constantly being undercut, turning my play session into AH camping.